Steep skiing

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Steep skiing

Postby Rod9301 » Thu Nov 06, 2014 4:20 pm

I read a couple of your books, and I incorporated the techniques in my skiing.

on medium to steep slopes, less than 50 degrees, I can turn by simply releasing the skis
.
But as I approach 50 degrees, this doesn't happen fast enough to adequately control my speed.

So I return to a pedal turn, where you retract the lower ski, while simultaneously push off the uphill ski and turn ( rotate) the skis under you.

How do you reconcile the two techniques?

Thank you.
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Re: Steep skiing

Postby Rod9301 » Thu Nov 06, 2014 4:23 pm

And by the way, before someone questions the 50 degrees, it's in the eastern sierra, in the backcountry.
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Re: Steep skiing

Postby geoffda » Thu Nov 06, 2014 6:31 pm

"I come from a ski racing background, so technically, I can do anything on skis..." ~ Jeremy Nobis, standing at the top of a 55 degree pitch in Chamonix.

In PMTS we teach carving. The problem is that most people don't truly understand what we mean by the word "carving." Unfortunately, it is a difficult concept to fully grasp until you can actually do it. If you understand what we mean by it, you will recognize that the process of learning how to control the ski to make it actually carve teaches you everything you need to know about ski technique. When you can truly carve, you create so much extra rotation that you have to explicitly use movements to manage, minimize or counteract it. As you learn how to do that, you also begin to understand how you can unleash all of those forces if you need to. This is what people who think that "rotary" is a skill don't get. Ironically, the best way to learn "rotary" isn't to do pivot slips, it is to learn how to carve at the highest levels. However, in order to learn how to actually carve at those levels, you have to first learn how to ski without throwing in active rotation.

So to answer your question, you don't really reconcile carving with pedal hops, but if you can carve at a very high level there is no need. To start with, anybody that can carve at high levels should have no difficulty with pedal hops. There might be a few exceptions, but those are going to be due to physical limitations. That said, when you watch skiers who came from a high level race background do pedal hops, they look different. Those skiers have the body awareness that they developed from learning to carve which allows them to minimize effort and maintain balance. You will generally see aggressive retraction rather than a pronounced extension to push off. You will often see them pre-load their bodies in a countered (anticipated) position so that when they pedal, the skis twist across due to the unwinding of their hips. They will balance better and you will see aggressive counterbalance occurring when the skis touch snow. You may even see some tipping occurring when the skis are in the air. All in all, from the perspective of body movements, they won't generally look all that different from when they are ripping regular turns.

The other thing to keep in mind is that carving on extreme slopes of 50 degrees or more is well within the realm of what elite skiers can do and they will use the movements that PMTS teaches to do it. And I'm not just talking about powder runs in Alaska. The pitch Jeremy Nobis skied that I'm referring to was chalky. Somewhere on this forum there is an article from a renowned ski mountaineer talking about carving turns down the Sky Ladder, which is a classic ice climb on Mount Andromeda. He correctly points out that carved turns are far safer on steep, icy pitches because you don't load the ski all at once and risk losing your edges. While carving extreme terrain requires a very high level of skill, I don't believe that it is outside the realm of what a sufficiently motivated and trained "average" skier could accomplish.

That isn't to say that you should never do pedal hops. Some may want to access steep terrain despite not being skilled enough to be able to carve turns there. Some places are simply too narrow to carve a turn. Nothing wrong with that. However, for those that never learned to carve in the first place, it is important to understand that spending too much time with pedal hops can make it difficult to learn how to carve on any pitch. Once rotation becomes an ingrained movement pattern, it will likely impede further skiing development.
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Re: Steep skiing

Postby Max_501 » Thu Nov 06, 2014 8:06 pm

Rod9301 wrote:But as I approach 50 degrees, this doesn't happen fast enough to adequately control my speed.

So I return to a pedal turn, where you retract the lower ski, while simultaneously push off the uphill ski and turn ( rotate) the skis under you.


Do you have any video you could post so we can see what you are doing?
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Re: Steep skiing

Postby Rod9301 » Thu Nov 06, 2014 9:02 pm

I don't have a video.

I am doing the pedal turns ok, but tu me they seem consistent with pmts, except for pushing off the uphill ski, and retracting the downhill.


And by pushing off,i don't mean extending upwards, hips remain flexed.

When it gets that steep, you need to finish the turn within a ski length, otherwise on firm snow you pick up a lot of speed.

And to further clarify, I am talking about narrow couloirs, not wide open faces.
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Re: Steep skiing

Postby jclayton » Fri Nov 07, 2014 9:26 am

" they seem consistent with pmts, except for pushing off the uphill ski, and retracting the downhill."

By definition they are not consistent with PMTS .
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Re: Steep skiing

Postby Rod9301 » Fri Nov 07, 2014 10:36 am

Ok, so how do you ski steep stuff that's firm and you absolutely have to finish the turn to control the speed, within a narrow corridor?
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Re: Steep skiing

Postby geoffda » Fri Nov 07, 2014 1:16 pm

Rod9301 wrote:Ok, so how do you ski steep stuff that's firm and you absolutely have to finish the turn to control the speed, within a narrow corridor?

This is a pointless question. You do whatever you have to do. If it is too narrow to turn, you either do some sort of a jump turn or you straight line. Skiing 50 degree ski-width couloirs is well outside the scope of any technique discussion. If you want to develop your skiing you aren't going to do it in extreme terrain and if you have to ask about what the "right" way to ski it is, you don't belong there in the first place. We don't teach people how to ski extreme terrain here, we teach people how to ski as well as they possibly can. Like I said, anyone who can master elite level carving skills will be able to employ those fundamentals in any terrain they like. Harald has coached at least two athletes that went on to become World Extreme Skiing Champions that I know of, using the same philosophy and movements that became PMTS. Do you think Chris Davenport had to take special lessons to learn how to jump turn or ski 55 degree faces after Harald got done teaching him how to ski? Racers ski better, because they understand exactly what they can do with the tool strapped to their feet. That is what PMTS offers. What you do with that knowledge is up to you.
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Re: Steep skiing

Postby Rod9301 » Fri Nov 07, 2014 1:50 pm

ok, sorry I asked a pointless question.
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Re: Steep skiing

Postby jbotti » Fri Nov 07, 2014 1:50 pm

Rod9301 wrote:
When it gets that steep, you need to finish the turn within a ski length, otherwise on firm snow you pick up a lot of speed.




Speed control for good skiers actually occurs at the top of the arc and not at the bottom. If you are skiing without the appropriate level of CA and you aren't holding that CA long enough you will be left with trying to bleed off speed at the bottom of the turn.

If you really want to learn and improve via PMTS post some video of your skiing in the MA section. It doesn't need to be in a couloir in fact it's better to just post it on moderate terrain. In 3 turns many here will be able to tell whether you have anywhere near enough CA and what other issues may be contributing to your issues.
Balance: Essential in skiing and in life!
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Re: Steep skiing

Postby blackthorn » Fri Nov 07, 2014 1:55 pm

A pedal hop turn is not clearly defined. However I feel that it is done best using the primary movements that form the basis of PMTS. For a PMTS skier it would be an evolution rather than a change of technique, similar in a way to developing a ski racer. If they started off with the PMTS, they would likely find it easier and more effective.
I've slowed down videos some time ago of Sylvan Saudain doing pedal hops and come to this conclusion using MA based on PMTS. Indeed flawed fundamentals may well be at the root of difficulties that exist in doing turns in extreme conditions.
And then, as geoffda implies, in extreme conditions "where needs must". At the other end of the scale we also snowplow in lift queues.
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Re: Steep skiing

Postby h.harb » Fri Nov 07, 2014 9:24 pm

Geoffda: That is a brilliant post. As far as the peddle turn, the Deslaurier bothers Eric and Rob, used the PMTS movements to teach and coach at their extreme camps. And they designed their version of the Peddle Turn around and based on PMTS movements. Eric and Rob were two of the best Extreme skiers on steeps, of all time. I skied and taught with them often over the years.
Perfect: More than one word, but the complete idea summed up in this paragraph.
Skiing 50 degree ski-width couloirs is well outside the scope of any technique discussion. If you want to develop your skiing you aren't going to do it in extreme terrain and if you have to ask about what the "right" way to ski it is, you don't belong there in the first place.
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Re: Steep skiing

Postby Rod9301 » Sat Nov 08, 2014 9:40 am

Thanks, I learned the pedal hop movement from eric deslauriers at squaw.
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Re: Steep skiing

Postby blackthorn » Sat Nov 08, 2014 9:56 am

The Deslauriers brothers' book 'Ski the Whole Mountain" describes and differentiates between a pedal hop and pedal carve turn as far as I can recall. I have a copy, but not accessible to me just at present. It is a great book, sadly out of print, but I did manage to purchase it second hand on Amazon last year.
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Re: Steep skiing

Postby theorist » Sat Nov 08, 2014 12:54 pm

blackthorn wrote:The Deslauriers brothers' book 'Ski the Whole Mountain" describes and differentiates between a pedal hop and pedal carve turn as far as I can recall. I have a copy, but not accessible to me just at present. It is a great book, sadly out of print, but I did manage to purchase it second hand on Amazon last year.

They wrote an article about this that appeared in Skiing, Mar-Apr 2001, which may contain the same material: http://books.google.com/books?id=90ofum ... rn&f=false
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